Does Porcini face a PR dilemma?

Pitino incident won't hurt, may even help restaurant, experts say

Aug. 17, 2009

Porcini restaurant on Frankfort Avenue won't comment on the Rick Pitino/Karen Sypher incident. But it shouldn't suffer any fallout from the jokes and notoriety, experts say. / Michael Hayman, The Courier-Journal

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Last week, Porcini was known throughout Louisville as one of the city's best restaurants.

Now, its reputation is worldwide — but not because of the food.

Porcini, of course, was the site of the after-hours Rick Pitino/Karen Sypher encounter six years ago.

Pitino has the more urgent PR problem. But on the basis of Porcini jokes on Facebook and Twitter, the restaurant may have a dilemma as well.

What's a four-star restaurant to do when it becomes a punchline? Porcini declined to comment on how it plans to handle the fallout. So we asked three PR gurus for their suggestions.

“If anything, it's going to take a well-known restaurant and give it an even bigger name,” said Jesse Derris, crisis counselor at Sunshine, Sachs and Associates in New York. “It's going to make it a tourist destination now. They'll probably do even more business than what they were doing before.”

Derris and other experts agreed that one of Porcini's biggest challenges will be making sure waiters and other employees have a non-offensive way to deal with customers who think they're funny — or the first to make a joke — as they're being led to their tables, or who ask for the infamous booth to be pointed out to them.

“(Porcini) should tell their staff not to make light of it and not to discuss it that much amongst themselves or with customers,” said Derris.

That said, Derris believes that Porcini will be better off in the end thanks to its now well-known association with Pitino.

“The entire world knows Porcini's has a very close relationship with the most popular guy in Kentucky,” he said.

Michael G. Cherenson, the 2009 chair and CEO of the Public Relations Society of America and executive vice president of Success Communications Group in Parsippany, N.J., agreed that people are unlikely to forget the restaurant's role in the scandal — but that's not necessarily bad news for Porcini.

The restaurant will always be associated with the incident, he said, noting that as long as the food and service continue to be top-notch, business should not be negatively affected.

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After all, “There have been a lot of places where worse things have taken place and they've been a stop on the tourist bus,” he said. “Restaurants have shootings and drug deals, and continue to not only survive, but thrive.”

“I'm sure some people will make it a stop on their trips into town just to see where it happened,” he said.

Jamie Estes, president of Louisville's Estes Public Relations, thinks Porcini needs to do a few key things to take control of its PR destiny.

“It doesn't really affect the quality of food or service, and that is something the restaurateur needs to get across to the public,” she said. “The only advice I would have to give … is to make sure everyone is on the same page and the staff isn't going off fueling the fire or giving their personal opinion on it, because it's a pretty sensitive matter, and it needs to be handled very tastefully.

“It's a very well-respected restaurant in this community,” Estes said. “It's been around for a long time. I think they'll weather this storm.”